The People and the Place

 

Heath Town Baths and Library – The People and the Place is a collaboration with writer and poet Emma Purshouse and the pupils of Heath Park School in Wolverhampton.

Heath Town Baths is a Grade 2 listed building from the 1930s, with classic art deco features. Prior to its closure in the late 1980s, the building was central to community life, providing in its early days extensive laundry facilities, public wash baths, a swimming pool and a library.

We worked together to devise a range of creative responses including film, photography, poetry, creative writing and performance that reflect and celebrate the life of this building and capture some of the aspirations of how it might be used in the future. The resulting work was premiered at Holy Trinity Church Hall in Wolverhampton on October 18th 2013.

Echoes is one of the films that we made with the pupils as part of the project and is featured here. We worked with the pupils to create fictional monologues based upon interviews gathered from local residents. We then worked together to rehearse and perform these to camera, setting them against a backdrop of archival photography.

Supported by The Tessa Sanderson Foundation and Academy and the Heritage Lottery Fund.